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LETTERS 

FROM / 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

TO / 

A FRIEND /sfo^A^vsAX %t^ W e^-^j 
1838-1853 



EDITED BY 

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK . 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1899 







3.? 



4 1838 

COPYRIGHT, 1S99, BY EDWARD W. EMERSON 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



WQOOHIfett «gj,^, 



^fe'?. 




teCOND COPY, 






INTRODUCTION 

The letters and fragments of letters 
here printed are part of the early records 
of a friendship which, beginning when 
Emerson was thirty years old, lasted un- 
broken and cordial till his death. In 
his well-known essay, Emerson has set 
forth his conception of friendship in 
what, with no derogatory intention, he 
called "fine lyric words," and his ideal- 
izing genius is nowhere more manifest 
than in his depicting of it. For its per- 
fection it must be free from the limita- 
tions inevitable in all human relations. 
It was never to be completely realized. 
" We walk alone in this world," he says ; 
3 



INTRODUCTION 

"friends such as we desire are dreams 
and fables." But though the ideal was 
not to be attained, he prized, as few men 
have prized, the blessing of such imper- 
fect friendship as the artificial order of 
society and the weakness of human na- 
ture allow to exist, and rejoiced in it as 
the symbol, at least, of that select and 
sacred relation between one soul and an- 
other " which even leaves the language 
of love suspicious and common, so much 
is this purer, and nothing is so much 
divine." 

It is thus that his letters to his friend? 
may show Emerson in a clearer mirror 
even than his poems and his essays. 
They are at times his most intimat 
expressions, the most vivid illustratior 
of his essential individuality, an individ 
ality so complete and absolute as to di 
4 



INTRODUCTION 

tinguish ijim from all other men in his 
generation, and to give him place with 
the few of all time who have had native 
force sufficient to enable them to be 
truly themselves, and to show to their 
brother men the virtue of an independ- 
ent spirit. 

The friend to whom the letters in this 
little volume were addressed was younger 
than Emerson by nine years. At the 
beginning of their friendship he had 
lately returned from Europe, where he 
had spent a year and a half under fortu- 
nate conditions. Europe was then far 
more distant from New England than it 
is to-day, and more was to be gained from 
-a visit to it. The youth had brought 
back from the Old World much of which 
Emerson, with his lively interest in all 
things of the intelligence, was curious 

5 



INTRODUCTION 

and eager to learn. His own genius was 
never more active or vigorous, and his 
young friend's enthusiasm was roused by 
the. spirit of Emerson's teaching as ex- 
pressed in the famous Phi Beta Kappa 
discourse in 1837, the lectures on Cul- 
ture, delivered in Boston in the win- 
ter of 1838, and the address before the 
Cambridge Divinity School in July of 
the same year. He did not fall into 
the position of a disciple seeking from 
Emerson a solution of the problems of 
life ; but he brought to Emerson the 
highest appreciation of the things which 
Emerson valued, and knowledge of other 
things of which Emerson knew little 
but for which he cared much. He pos- 
sessed, moreover, the practical qualities 
and the acquaintance with affairs in 
which Emerson was fortunately deficient, 
6 



INTRODUCTION 

but which he held in high respect. I say 
fortunately deficient, in so far as they 
might have detracted from that pure 
idealism in which lay the unique charm 
of Emerson's nature, and the originality 
and permanence of his work. 

These were happy conditions for the 
relation to which they led. The friends 
did not meet or correspond often enough 
to dull its edge. 

C. E. Norton. 

May, 1899. 

7 



LETTERS 



Concord, August 16th, 1838. 

Miss Fuller thinks you have so much 
leisure, that you could come to Concord, 
if you would. I am particularly at leisure 
now, disposed to be grateful for all good 
influences, and especially curious of in- 
formation on art and artists, of which 
however, I warn you, I know nothing. 
Will you not in these circumstances come 
and spend a day with me } If you are 
at liberty Sunday, come out here Satur- 
day afternoon, and we will gladly keep 
you two nights. 

R. Waldo Emerson. 
9 



LETTERS 



II 



Concord, August z^th, 1839. 

It is so seldom that I am in Boston 
with any leisure to remain, that I please 
myself with thinking I shall meet you 
at $. B. K. at Cambridge. Do you not 
go ? There is a warrant for good prose 
and good poetry, I hope, in the names of 
the workmen. If you are at leisure, pray 
come. 

R. W. Emerson. 
10 



LETTERS 



III 



Concord, October 3^, 1S39. 

Though I hate to acknowledge times as 
much as Dr. Johnson did to own the exist- 
ence of weather, yet it seems as if a cer- 
tain perplexity were all but universal 
among the contemplative class of persons 
in this country at this moment ; — the 
very children are infected with skepticism 
and ennui. Even the active, except in a 
very few happy instances, appear to owe 
their health and efficiency to their forcing 
the exercise of thought and the creative 
arts. So general a mischief will be at- 
tended by its own great advantages, and 
meantime the more fortunate must wait 
for the less with a sure trust in the re- 
medial force of nature. To be sure, if 
we outgrow our early friendships there 
is no help, and undoubtedly where there 
is inequality in the intellect we must re- 
II 



LETTERS 

sign them, but true society is so rare that 
I think I could not afford to spare from 
my circle a poet as long as he can offer 
so indisputable a token as a good verse 
of his relation to what is highest in 
Being. It is possible that my love of 
these gifts might enable me to be useful 
to your friend if I knew him. As lovers 
of Enghsh poetry we should certainly 
have common ground enough to meet 
upon. I seldom go into company in 
Boston, but if I should have an oppor- 
portunity of making his acquaintance, I 
will not fail to use it. I shall not send 
you to-day Henry Thoreau's verses, but 
I think I shall send them soon, at least 
the Elegy,! which pleases me best. 

1 This was the poem printed under the title of Sympa- 
thy in the volume of Thoreau's Letters, which was edited 
by Mr. Emerson in 1865. 

12 



LETTERS 



IV 



Concord, October 2';th, 1839. 

I am happy in the new relations to 
which you invite me by your persevering 
kindness. I have your portfolio ^ in my 
study, and am learning to read in that 
book too. But there are fewer painters 
than poets. Ten men can awaken me 
by words to new hope and fruitful mus- 
ing, for one that can achieve the miracle 
by forms. Besides, I think the pleasure 
of the poem lasts me longer. And yet 
the expressive arts ought to go abreast, 
and as much genius find its way to light 
in design as in song — and probably does, 
so far as the artist is concerned ; butjthe 
eye is a speedier student than the ear ; by 
a grand or a lovely form it is astonished 
or delighted once for all and quickly ap- 
peased, whilst the sense of a verse steals 

1 Containing the large engravings of the ceiling of the 
Sistine Chapel. 

13 



LETTERS 

slowly on the mind and suggests a hun- 
dred fine fancies before its precise im- 
port is finally settled. 

Or is this wholly unjust to the noble 
art of design and only showing that I 
have a hungry ear but a dull eye ? I 
shall keep your prints a little while, if 
you can spare them, until I have got my 
lesson by heart. Will you let me say 
that I have conceived more highly of the 
possibilities of the art sometimes in look- 
ing at weather stains on a wall, or fantas- 
tic shapes which the eye makes out of 
shadows by lamplight, than from really 
majestic and finished pictures.^ 

1 This may remind the reader of the sentences in Leo- 
nardo da Vinci's Treatise on Painting, in wliich he says (I 
translate with some abridgment) : " I will not omit from 
among these precepts one which, though it may seem small, 
and even to be smiled at, is nevertheless of great utility 
in rousing the genius to various inventions, and it is this : 
If thou wilt look carefully at walls spotted with stains, or at 
stones variously mixed, thou mayst see in them similitudes 
of all sorts of landscapes, or figures in all sorts of actions, 
and infinite things which thou mayst be able to bring into 
complete and good form." 

14 



LETTERS 



Concord, November 26ih, 1839. 

I confess I have difficulty in accepting 
the superb drawing ^ which you ask me to 
keep. In taking it from the portfoho, I 
take it from its godhke companions to 
put it where it must shine alone. Besides, 
I have identified your collection with the 
collector, I have been glad to learn to 
know you through your mute friends. 
They tell me very eloquently what you 
iove, and a portfolio seems to me a more 
expressive vehicle of taste and charac- 
ter than a bunch of flowers. This beau- 
tiful Endymion deserves to be looked on 
by instructed eyes. But I shall not 
resist your generosity, and indeed am 
warmed at heart by your good will to me. 
I assure myself that we shall have oppor- 
tunity of being better friends presently. 

1 A copy of the antique design. 

IS 



LETTERS 

But I will not understand an expression 
of sadness in your letter as anything but 
a momentary shade. For I conceive of 
you as allied on every side to what is 
beautiful and inspiring, with noblest pur- 
poses in life and with powers to execute 
your thought. What space can be allowed 
you for a moment's despondency .-* The 
free and the true, the few who conceive 
of a better life, are always the soul of the 
world. In whatever direction their activ- 
ity flows, society can never spare them, 
but all men feel even in their silent pre- 
sence a moral debt to such — were it only 
the manifestation of the fact that there 
are aims higher than the average. In 
this country we need whatever is gener- 
ous and beautiful in character more than 
ever because of the general mediocrity of 
thought produced by the arts of gain. 
With a few friends who can yield us the 
luxury of sincerity and of a manly re- 
sistance too, one can face with more cour- 
age the battle of every day — and these 
i6 



LETTERS 

friends, it is a part of my creed, we always 
find ; the spirit provides for itself. If they 
come late, they are of a higher class. 
Of your friends I have seen two, and you 
have shown me the verses of another — 
who certainly do no discredit to your 
choice. In such a band I shall always be 
happy to be numbered. 

I have copied Thoreau's Elegy that I 
told you pleased me so well. Some time 
you shall give it, if you please, to Miss 
Fuller. I am glad of the liberty to keep 
the Portfolio until after Thanksgiving.^ 
I will look and see if I have any notes on 
any of the pictures worth sending. 

1 " I turn the proud portfolios 
Which hold the grand designs 
Of Salvator and Guercino, 
And Piranesi's lines." 

Ode to Beauty. 

17 



LETTERS 



VI 



Concord, Friday eve., December i^tk, 1839. 

Since you please to ask it, you shall 
have the old almanac about Edmund 
Burke — the only presentable piece I 
find of the series. I printed two in the 
North American Review,^ It is droll to 
send it to you : I dare not look into it : 
but I doubt not you shall sleep the better 
some night. I think I might qualify the 
anodyne by sending you one of last win- 
ter's composition, a piece which I wrote 
with good heart, and trust you may find 
some sp'arks still alive in the cinders. 
The argument were fitter for rh)nne : but 
that comes only by the special favor of 
the skies. It is very pleasant to me to 
write myself. . . . 

R. W. Emerson. 

1 One on Michelangelo in the number of the Review for 
Jan., 1S37 ; the other on Milton in July, 1838. 
18 



LETTERS 



VII 



Concord, Friday night, January I'jtk, 1840. 

Read, my friend, whilst you read so 
well, and continue to inform me of your 
results. I like very well the criticism on 
Antigone, and perhaps shall have some- 
thing to add to it by and by. Good read- 
ing is nearly as rare as good writing. I 
believe they are both done usually by the 
same persons. 

Certainly we discover our friends by 
the very highest tokens, and these not 
describable, often not even intelligible, 
but not the less sure to that augury which 
is within the intellect and therefore 
higher. This is to me the most attrac- 
tive of all topics, and, I doubt not, when- 
ever I get your full confession of faith, we 
shall be at one on the matter. Because 
the subject is so high and sacred, we 
cannot walk straight up to it ; we must 
19 



LETTERS 

saunter if we would find the secret. 
Nature's roads are not turnpikes but 
circles, and the instincts are the only- 
sure guides, I am glad if you have so 
much patience as you say, it is the only 
sure method that can be trusted. If men 
are fit for friendship I think they must 
see their mutual sympathy across the 
unlikeness and even apathy of to-day. 
But I see that I am writing sentences and 
no letter, and as I wish you to like me, I 
will not add another word. 

R. W. E. 
20 



LETTERS 



VIII 



Concord, /««« 22c? [1S40]. 

Send me, I entreat you, a particular 
verbal message by the bearer (for I will 
not ask you to write) how you do, and 
whether you are mending. 

I am sad that you should be ill and 
with that ugly pertinacious ague fever ; 
but at home you will soon throw it off. 
What can I do to amuse your imprison- 
ment ? Can you read ? When you can, 
I have a precious little old book that 
might go in Alexander's casket with the 
Iliad, that I will send you to look into. 

Then I am just now finishing a Chap- 
ter on Friendship (of which one of my 
lectures last winter contained a first 
sketch) on which I would gladly provoke 
a commentary. I have written nothing 
with more pleasure, and the piece is al- 
ready indebted to you and I wish to swell 



LETTERS 

my obligations. If I like it, when I read 
it over, I shall send it to you. 

When you can write without inconven- 
ience, send me the shortest possible note 
to certify me of your welfare. 

R. W. Emerson. 

22 



LETTERS 



IX 



Concord, July yih, 1840. 

I have delayed to thank you for the 
good news you sent me of your new health 
and strength, that I might send you the 
manuscript which I have set my heart on 
your reading. But it will not get quite 
finished, though I have thought it all but 
done, two or three times. Now will I do 
just what you forbid me — I will keep the 
paper and send the book — The Con- 
fessions of Augustine — translated two 
hundred years ago in the golden time 
when all translations seemed to have the 
fire of original works. You shall not be 
alarmed at my zeal for your reading. You 
shall only try your fortune in it. Some 
cloudy morning when you cannot ride, 
read twenty lines, and send it back with- 
out criticism. I push the little antiquity 
toward you merely out of gratitude to 
23 



LETTERS 

some golden words I read in it last sum- 
mer. What better oblation could I oifer 
the Saint than the opportunity of a new- 
proselyte ? But do not read. Why read 
this book or any book ? It is a foolish 
conformity and does well for dead people. 
It happens to us once or twice in a life- 
time to be drunk with some book which j-H 
probably has some extraordinary relative 
power to intoxicate ns and none other : 
and having exhausted that cup of en- 
chantment we go groping in libraries all 
our years afterward in the hope of being 
in Paradise again. But what better sign 
can the good genius of our times show 
that the old creative force is ready to work 
again, than the universal indisposition of 
the best heads to touch the books even 
of name and fame. 

R. W. Emerson. 
24 



LETTERS 



X 



Concord, /z^/^* li^th, Evening, 1840. 

Your challenges are all too good to 
remain unanswered. I acknowledge their 
wit and force, and it is plain I must an- 
swer them if I can — but not now. I 
was so taken by the manner of the coun- 
ter-statement in which too my quoted 
statements wore a quite Irish look, that 
I could not even recall the mood in which 
I had written or the things I had said. 
But though I do not much incline to 
compare too suddenly the statements of 
two parties, but rather leave each to 
make his own in full, sure that at last 
the qualification required to put it in 
harmony with the other and with every 
other will leap out, yet I have some 
impatience to satisfy you, as I am con- 
scious of simplicity in these sallies of 
speculation. But to-night I am in no 
25 



LETTERS 

mood for writing and only wish to say 
how much pleasure your letter gives me, 
after fear for your sickness. — I have 
got my " Essay on Friendship " now into 
some shape, not yet symmetrical but 
approximate to that, and though it is 
longer than it was when I proposed to 
send it to you, yet it shall go. I shall 
not want it for some weeks. 

R. W. E. 
26 



LETTERS 



XI 



Concord, /z^/y iSi/i, 1840. 

The reason why I am curious about you 
is that with tastes which I also have, you 
have tastes and powers and correspond- 
ing circumstances which I have not and 
perhaps cannot divine. Certainly we will 
not quarrel with our companion that he 
has more roots subterranean or aerial sent 
out into the great universe to draw his 
nourishment withal. The secret of vir- 
tue is to know that the richer another is, 
the richer am I ; — how much more if that 
other is my friend. If you are a mighty 
hunter, if you are a Mohawk Indian with 
a string of equivocal, nay truculent-look- 
ing hair-tufts at your belt, if we agree 
well enough, to draw together, those wild 
experiences of yours will add vivacity to 
the covenant. So good luck to your fish- 
ing! 

27 



LETTERS 

The D'Orsay portrait,^ I am sorry to 
say, never came. Sumner thought it was 
not quite ready from the printer's hand. 
I have sent for it since, and I hope it will 
arrive. 

What can I tell you ? Not the small- 
est event enlivens our little sandy village ; 
we have not even rigged out a hay cart 
for a whortleberry party. If I look out 
of the window there is perhaps a cow ; 
if I go into the garden there are cucum- 
bers ; if I look into the brook there is a 
mud turtle. In the sleep of the great 
heats there was nothing for me but to 
read the Vedas, the bible of the tropics, 
which I find I come back upon every 
three or four years. It is sublime as heat 
and night and a breathless ocean. It 
contains every religious sentiment, all the 
grand ethics which visit in turn each 

* 1 Count D'Orsay's portrait of Carlyle, which Carlyle had 
thought of sending to Emerson by Mr. Charles Sumner, 
on his return from Europe. See Carlyle's letters to Emer- 
son in TAe Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, i. 299, 
28 



LETTERS 

noble and poetic mind, and nothing is 
easier than to separate what must have 
been the primeval inspiration from the 
endless ceremonial nonsense which car- 
icatures and contradicts it through every 
chapter. It is of no use to put away the 
book : if I trust myself in the woods or 
in a boat upon the pond, nature makes 
a Bramin of me presently : eternal neces- 
sity, eternal compensation, unfathomable 
power, unbroken silence, — this is her 
creed. Peace, she saith to me, and purity 
and absolute abandonment — these pen- 
ances expiate all sin and bring you to the 
beatitude of the "Eight Gods." 

R. W. E. 
29 



LETTERS 



XII 

This letter is just and wise and a true 
refreshment. I believe I must not affect 
to answer it. This is inquiry and in- 
quirer that can never be otherwise than 
self-solved, and they know it very well, 
in what form soever they please to couch 
their thinking. And yet one is tempted 
to say, see here again what welcome evi- 
dence to the old saw that the soul may 
not sleep, may not remember, but must 
live incessant. Not in his goals but in 
his transition man is great, and the tru- 
est state of mind rested in becomes false. 
Our admiration accuses us. Instead of 
admiring the Apollo, or the picture, or 
the victory at Marengo, we ought to be 
producing what is admirable, and these 
things should glitter to us as hints and 
stints merely. But these beautiful modes 
30 



LETTERS 

of the spul's expression are past — are 
they ? Well : Vishnu has nine or ninety- 
other incarnations, and is the lord of na- 
ture and is the all-excluding beauty, in 
every one. I like a geranium as well as 
an oak, and cannot see why every man 
should not have his new and private road 
into the region of beautiful production, 
as well as his indisputable access, on the 
other side, to the cause of causes. 

Not to-day but soon I think I will 
copy out of a blotted manuscript a paral- 
lel text of my own to these speculations of 
yours. If it should chance to be a little 
too old and long it may yet lull you on 
the haycock. 

R. W. E. 
31 



LETTERS 

XIII 

Concord, March \st, 1841. 

I return Beranger and the " Letters " 
of Sand. I shall not, I see, read more at 
present in either, if I should keep them 
longer. I am content to accept your ac- 
count of Beranger, who seems to me one 
who does what he undertakes ; but though 
we say " Well done " if we pass by, I think 
we should not be much the poorer if we 
never saw him. 

I find myself, maugre all my philoso- 
phy, a devout student and admirer of per- 
sons. I cannot get used to them : they 
daunt and dazzle me still. I have just 
now been at the old wonder again. I see 
persons whom I think the world would be 
richer for losing ; and I see persons whose 
existence makes the world rich. But 
blessed be the Eternal Power for those 
whom fancy even cannot strip of beauty, 
and who never for a moment seem to me 
profane. 

R. W. E. 

32 



LETTERS 



XIV 



Concord, Mo7iday eve., June 27, 1S41. 

I thought as I walked in this amber 
sunset, that I would send my voice across 
these seventeen wide miles of hill and 
dale and flower-bearing fields, to say. 
Hail, Brother ! Keep as much kindness 
for me in the corner of thy heart, as I 
hold for thee. The day will yet come 
when we shall celebrate it all. In truth, I 
am very far from consenting to be for- 
gotten by you, and in my lonely woods I 
see you and talk with you so often, that 
it seems to me that through some of the 
fine channels which inform fine souls, 
you must sometimes feel the influence. 
Your frank kindness has been a bright 
sign in my firmament, — and few beams 
were ever so grateful. 

You two chosen and fortunate children 
33 



LETTERS 

for this present need nothing but your- 
selves, and it is almost an intrusion to 
come and see you, unless one can enter 
gaily into the whole scenery of your en- 
chanted isle. 

Waldo E. 
34 



LETTERS 



XV 



Nantasket Beach, July, 1S41. 

My friend shall solve his own ques- 
tions, as I suppose whoever makes a wise 
inquiry only announces the problem on 
which he is already busy and which he 
will be the first to dispose of, and I shall 
gladly attend all the steps of the solution. 
But is it the picture of the unbounded sea, 
or is it the lassitude of this Syrian sum- 
mer, that more and more draws the cords 
of Will out of my thought and leaves me 
nothing but perpetual observation, per- 
petual acquiescence and perpetual thank- 
fulness ? Shall I not be Turk and fatal- 
ist before to-day's sun shall set ? and in 
this thriving New England too, full of 
din and snappish activity and invention 
and wilfulness. Can you not save me, 
dip me into ice water, find me some gird- 
ing belt, that I glide not away into a 
35 



LETTERS 

stream or a gas, and decease in infinite 
diffusion ? Reinforce me, I entreat you, 
with showing me some man, work, aim 
or fact under the angle of practice ^ that I 
may see you as an elector and rejector, 
an agent, an antagonist and a commander. 
I have seen enough of the obedient sea 
wave forever lashing the obedient shore. 
I find no emblems here that speak any 
other language than the sleep and aban- 
donment of my woods and blueberry pas- 
tures at home. If you know the ciphers 
of rudder and direction, communicate 
them to me \vithout delay. Noah's flood 
and the striae which the good geologist 
finds on every mountain and rock seem 
to me the records of a calamity less uni- 
versal than this metaphysical flux which 
threatens every enterprise, every thought 
and every thinker. How high will this 
Nile, this Mississippi, this Ocean, rise, 
and will ever the waters be stayed } 

Ah ! my friend, I fear you will think 
that it is to little purpose that I have for 
36 



LETTERS 

once forsaken my house and crept down 
hither to the water side, if I have not pre- 
vailed to get away from the old dreams. 
Well, these too have their golden side, 
and we are optimists when the sun shines. 
I give you joy of your garden or garden- 
ette, but I wish to know how the street 
and the work that is done in it look to 
you. 

You have been here ? It is a sunny 
breezy place with delicious afternoons 
and nights — to such as can be delighted. 
There is one person in this neighborhood 
whose work, you ought to see, if you have 
not already seen them, Mr. Sprague, a 
house painter of Hingham, who paints 
birds as well as Mr. Audubon — I think, 
perhaps very ignorantly. I was at his 
house yesterday, and saw his portfolio. 
I shall probably go home from here or 
from Plymouth next Monday, and I mean 
to stay at home till you come and see 
me. 

R. W. E. 
37 



LETTERS 



XVI 



Concord, September zyth, 1841, Monday. 

We all are dressed out in tendencies, 
and are loved or rather tolerated for the 
hopes we awaken. Our children are to 
execute not what we foresaw, but what 
our best moments promised to the eyes 
that watched us. A fairer fortune I can 
hardly ask for this newest born than that 
she shall quickly fulfil in the common 
daylight the fair and religious presenti- 
ments with which her parents each and 
both have adorned for me some hours of 
solitude. So may it be and more also ! 
And may each added hour decorate and 
endear the house, which, I suppose, has 
never before seemed lonely, but will now 
look so in your retrospect. 

Waldo E. 
38 



LETTERS 



XVII 



Concord, October 23c?, 1841. 

In our brown lowlands, in our parti- 
colored woods, the passenger finds no- 
thing but sparrows, crows, partridges, 
and though nature has no rood of meadow 
so empty but to the purged eye she can 
crowd it with enchantments, — yet where 
to find the euphrasy and rue that shall 
make the purgation ? The laws of that 
partial illumination which is permitted to 
each of us, we do not know, and when 
some gray rail-fence or tussuck of grass 
has chanced to become a symbol to us 
of things in life that are great and affect- 
ing, we cannot repeat the vision or vary 
the lesson. Once shut, the rock will not 
open, but remains a rock. Strange magic 
by which it draws us against hope to 
hover and waste good time about the 
same spots in the wish for new revela- 
39 



LETTERS 

tions ! But I have no secrets to tell you 
from the Old Mother. None have lately 
been told me. Lone and sad, sometimes 
busy and glad, I walk under this broad 
cope and these hospitable trees. They 
never seem surprised at my thoughts and 
seldom suffer their own to escape. Some- 
times — rarely, I pity them. Often they 
seem to pity me. They are a great con- 
venience, they hide and separate men 
who are often much better for being hid 
and solitary. 

But how absurd to be writing to you 
on fields green or brown as a counterpart 
to your city perambulations : as if nature 
were less present in streets, as if the 
country were not too strong for the lili- 
put interference that strives to barricade 
it out ; as if it did not force itself into 
pits of theatres and cellars of markets, 
as if the air, and darkness, and space 
and time were not nature, — wild, untam- 
able, all-containing Nature. You and I, 
my friend, sit in different houses, and 
40 



LETTERS 

speak all day to different persons, but the 
differences — make the most we can of 
them — are trivial ; we are lapped at last 
in the same idea, we are hurried along in 
the same material system of stars, in the 
same immaterial system of influences, to 
the same untold ineffable goal. Let us 
exchange now and then a word or a look 
on the new phases of the Dream. 

Waldo Emerson. 

41 



LETTERS 



XVIII 



Concord, November lyi, 1S41. 

I was in town yesterday with the ex- 
pectation of spending the night there 
and, in that case, of seeing you at home, 
but it happened that I ended my affairs 
faster much than I looked for, and got 
home here again at sLx o'clock, to learn 
that a little maiden had been here just 
one hour waiting to see her father. She 
is so quiet and contented, so incommu- 
nicable, deigning only the shortest and 
most unsatisfactory glances at the large 
and small beholders, that she interests 
us all, if it were only by so much majesty. 
And as I think that two months of 
growth in your babe must have quite ob- 
literated all first impressions by so many 
newer and livelier, I will venture to tell 
you another trait of this little self-pos- 
sessed and most assured personage, that 
42 



LETTERS 

she seems -to me much more than a cen- 
tury old — say many centuries, — the 
hoariest antiquity, Father Apennine, or 
the Jungfrau Mountain not older. — So 
much for the little Lidian, the older one 
(older by the almanac) is very well and 
happily recruiting. The curiosity of the 
brother and sister is inextinguishable. 

I am just announcing my new course 
of lectures — so far does the thirst of pub- 
lishing my solitudes and the need some- 
times felt by me of a stated task, add 
even some small degree of superstition 
of a necessity to speak what one fancies 
people ought to hear, with other reasons, 
drive me. 

R. Waldo E. 
43 



LETTERS 



XIX 



Concord, September \^th, 1842. 

All men, I suppose, suffer provocations, 
from they know not whence, to thought 
and to the Celestial Bounty ; but to the 
most it is a sting so superficial, that it 
blends with temperament and ends with 
puberty ; but when those who are more 
godlike hear the gods, the voices remain 
like the sound of the sea in the seashell, 
and these voices cheer them as they ap- 
proach, and torment them as they depart 
from their true home. I suppose there 
are secret bands that tie each man to his 
mark with a mighty force ; first, of course, 
his Daemon, a beautiful immortal figure 
whom the ancients said, though never 
visible to himself, sometimes appeared 
shining before him to others ; but, then, 
with scarcely less potency the vehement 
desires and good-will of others, expecting 
44 



LETTERS 

that of him 'which not his tongue but his 
nature promises ; and these desires flow 
to him often from such as cannot speak 
to him, and yet have the dearest interest 
in his success. Later, perhaps, these also 
become visible to him and enhance the 
joy of his victories. 

W. 
45 



LETTERS 



XX 



Thii^avei^fhia, January 24,tk, 1843. 

I have found that I must be an ab- 
sentee much longer than I thought when 
I saw you last, and I grow affectionate 
under the dispensation and write letters. 
You are born and bred in the world — 
and you probably by habit do set your ex- 
pectations somewhat nearer to the mark 
than such persons as I, who are always 
victims of glare and superstition, and 
must continually correct our overesti- 
mates. Philadelphia, I fancied, was a 
great unit, a less New York, if not so 
large and populous, more majestic, a city 
of rich repose. But after conversing now 
with many persons here for a few days, 
I cannot find at all any city, any unit. 
A great multitude of houses, all nearly 
alike, lying very peacefully together, — 
but the tenants, from their number, very 
46 



LETTERS 

much unknown to each other, and not 
animated by any common spirit, or by 
the presence of any remarkable individ- 
uals. In the absence of the usual excite- 
ments of trade, the whole body certainly 
wears a very lymphatic appearance ; one 
might call it, but for the disrespect to 
the divine sex, a very large granny. For 
there seems an entire absence here of 
any strenuous men or man or public 
opinion ; a deference to the opinion of 
New York ; a fear of Boston; and, in this 
great want of thought, a very dull timidity 
and routine among the citizens them- 
selves. I have diligently inquired among 
the intelligent for the more intelligent ; 
asked every Greek, " who was the second 
best in the camp } " yet have found no 
At rides. Very fair and pleasant people, 
but thus far, no originals. If the world 
was all Philadelphia, although the poultry 
and dairy market would be admirable, I 
fear suicide would exceedingly prevail. 
I look eagerly for the stars at night, for 
47 



LETTERS 

fear they would disappear in the dull air. 
I have verified the fact of a sunrise and 
sunset ; and the sea, though in a muddy 
complexion, really finds its way to these 
wharves. When you see what facts I 
explore to sustain my faith, you will un- 
derstand why in these extremes I should 
convulsively write to you, to try if the 
high world of man and friend still stands 
fast. 

I must thank the Quaker City, how- 
ever, for a new conviction, that this 
whim called friendship was the brightest 
thought in what Eden or Olympus it first 
occurred. I think the two first friends 
must have been travellers. — I doubt 
you think my practice of the finest art 
to be bad enough, but friendship does not 
ever seem to me quite real in the world, 
but always prophetic ; and if I wrote on 
the Immortality of the Soul, this would 
be my first topic. Yet is nothing more 
right than that men should think to ad- 
dress each other with truth and the high- 
48 



LETTERS 

est poetry at certain moments, far as 
their ordinary intercourse is therefrom 
and buried in trifles. I will try if a man 
is a man, I will know if he feels that 
star as I feel it ; among trees, does he 
know them and they him ? Is he at the 
same time both flowing and fixed ? Does 
he feel that Nature proceeds from him, 
yet can he carry himself as if he were 
the meanest particle ? All and nothing ? 
These things I would know of him, yet 
without catechism : he shall tell me them 
in all manner of unexpected ways, in his 
behaviour and in his repose. It is time 
to end my letter, yet I have only come 
to the beginning of that I had to say to 
you, and I think to write again presently. 
Your friend Waldo E. 
49 



LETTERS 



XXI 



Philadb-lphia, /an7iary zdth, 1S43. 

Before my yet libellous letter was gone 
to the Post Office came your letter of 
kind inquiries, and as I am more amiable 
than usual by reason of that absence I 
told thee of, it was very heartily received. 
But it shall not stop the stream of my 
communications on the laws of love in 
general and of my love in particular. I 
have seen lately some good people and 
Hew friendships are offered me. Then I 
remember the saying, that love may be 
increased, but not multiplied. What 
have I to do with you, O kind stranger } 
Some of the best of the children of men 
have put their hands into mine. I will 
deserve them and hold them fast. Is it 
not something gross to be facile to new 
impressions, before yet we have well 
established ourselves in the love of those 
SO 



LETTERS 

whom -v^e esteem ? For Jean Paul says 
rightly " It is easy to love, — but to es- 
teem — ! " It is strange how people act 
on me. I am not a pith ball nor raw 
silk, yet to human electricity is no piece 
of humanity so sensible. I am forced to 
live in the country, if it were only that 
the streets make me desolate. Yet if I 
talk with a man of sense and kindness, 
I am imparadised at once. Pity that this 
light of the heart should resemble the 
light of the eyes in being so external and 
not to be retained when the shutters are 
closed. Now that I am in the mood of 
confession, you must even hear the whole. 
It is because I am so idle a member of 
society ; because men turn me by their 
mere presence to wood and to stone ; be- 
cause I do not get the lesson of the world 
where it is set before me, that I need 
more than others to run out into new 
places and multiply my chances for ob- 
servation and communion. Therefore, 
whenever I get into debt, which usually 
51 



LETTERS 

happens once a year, I must make the 
plunge into this great odious river of 
travellers, into these cold eddies of hotels 
and boarding houses — farther, into these 
dangerous precincts of charlatanism, 
namely, lectures, that out of all the evil I 
may draw a little good in the correction 
which every journey makes to my exag- 
gerations, in the plain facts I get, and in 
the rich amends I draw for many listless 
days, in the dear society of here and there 
a wise and great heart. I hate the details, 
but the whole foray into a city teaches 
me much. 

I have seen more of the people here. 
I have found out that the bay-like rivers 
are really rivers, and the water is not 
salt for twenty miles below Philadelphia, 
and I suppose I ought to find out that 
the men are. I am always sure to be 
shown that there is no difference in places 
and that the average of wit seldom varies. 

Waldo E. 
52 



LETTERS 



XXII 



September T,otk [1842]. 

Hawthorne and I visited the Shakers 
at Harvard, made ourselves very much at 
home with them, conferred with them on 
their faith and practice, took all reason- 
able liberties with the brethren, found 
them less stupid, more honest than we 
looked for, found even some humour, and 
had our fill of walking and sunshine.^ 

R. W. E. 

1 Mr. Cabot's Memoir of Emerson (p. 373) contains a 
fuller account of this visit to the Shakers and of the two 
days' walk with Hawthorne, from the record of it made by 
Emerson in his journal. " It was a satisfactory tramp. 
We had good talk on the way," wrote Emerson of it, 
twenty-two years later, after Hawthorne's death. 

53 



LETTERS 



XXIII 



Concord, February ist, 1844. 

Here are the six volumes of " Con- 
suelo." I like nothing in the whole so 
well as the first volume, though there are 
good things in every part. The criticism 
on styles in art was all luminous, and the 
relations of art and artists to life and so- 
ciety are strongly sketched. Then how 
much the writer enjoys the bringing to- 
gether of two superior persons, and paint- 
ing their instant intimacy and good under- 
standing. There is a good deal of con- 
fused and factitious matter in the Count 
Albert, and one wants to say to him with 
Dr. Johnson, " Clear your head of non- 
sense." No, it was Fox said so to Napo- 
leon. And most of the characters have 
a dim unsubstantial look, and one fears 
to spy the " stars dim twinkling through 
their forms." Yet I think Sand shows 
54 



LETTERS 

herself to be a real person, one whose 
opinions will always interest you, one of 
the persons on the planet best worth 
speaking to. Waldo E. 

55 



LETTERS 



XXIV 



Concord, December i^th, 1S44. 

Mr. Hoar has just come home from 
Carolina, and gave me this morning a 
narrative of his visit.^ He has behaved 
admirably well, I judge, and there were 
fine heroic points in his story. One ex- 
pression struck me, which, he said, he re- 
gretted a little afterwards, as it might 
sound a little vapouring. A gentleman 
who was very much his friend called him 
into a private room to say, that the dan- 

1 Of the Hon. Samuel Hoar, and of his experience in 
Charleston, S. C, when sent thither as commissioner of 
Massachusetts, Mr. Emerson told, twelve years after the 
date of this letter, in a speech at Concord. It is printed in 
the tenth volume of his works, the volume entitled Lec- 
tures and Biographical Sketches. Samuel Hoar " was 
born under a Christian and humane star, full of mansuetude 
and nobleness, honor and charity ; and whilst he was will- 
ing to face every disagreeable duty, whilst he dared to do 
all that might beseem a man, his self-respect restrained him 
from any foolhardiness." 

56 



LETTERS 

ger from the populace had increased to 
such a degree that he must now insist on 
Mr. Hoar's leaving the city at once, and 
he showed him where he might procure a 
carriage and where he might safely stop 
on the way to his plantation, which he 
would reach the next morning. Mr. 
Hoar thanked him, but told him again 
that he could not and would not go, and 
that he had rather his broken scull should 
be carried to Massachusetts by somebody 
else, than to carry it home safe himself 
whilst his duty required him to remain. 
The newspapers say, following the 
Charleston papers, that he consented to 
depart : this he did not, but in every in- 
stance refused, — to the Sheriff, and act- 
ing Mayor, to his friends, and to the com- 
mittee of the S. C. Association, and only 
went when they came in crowds with 
carriages to conduct him to the boat, 
and go he must, — then he got into the 
coach himself, not thinking it proper to 
be dragged. 

57 



LETTERS 

There was an account in the news- 
papers some months since of a Sheriff 
Batterman who was sent to serve a writ 
on the Rensselaer tenants in New York. 
I remember talking with Mr. Hoar one 
day, long before he was appointed to 
this mission, on that account. I told him 
I should like to give a vote for that Mr. 
Batterman for President of the U. S. Mr. 
Hoar fully entered into my respect for 
the officer, as indeed his own character 
would lead him to. He has had now a 
good occasion to breathe his own virtue. 
Our politics promise to give us fine gym- 
nastic culture if we are inclined. 

I have no literature, I believe, to offer 
you in return for your good news of Goe- 
the. I read lately Alexander Henry's 
book of travels in America in 1766, &c. 
which I think the best book about the 
Indians I have seen. Yet I have never 
read Catlin. But I prize every book of 
facts, I believe, much more than practi- 
cal men, so-called, do. Much the best 
58 



LETTERS 

society I have ever known is a club in 
Concord called " the Social Circle," con- 
sisting always of twenty-five of our citi- 
zens — doctor, lawyer, farmer, trader, 
miller, mechanic, &c., solidest men who 
yield the solidest gossip. Harvard Uni- 
versity is a wafer in comparison with the 
solid land which my friends represent. 
I do not like to be absent from home on 
Tuesday evenings in winter. 

R. Waldo E. 
59 



LETTERS 



XXV 



Concord, February^ 1845. 

Have you ever heard W. Phillips ? I 
have not learned a better lesson in many 
weeks than last night in a couple of hours. 
The core of the comet did not seem to 
be much, but the whole air was full of 
splendours. One orator makes many, 
but I think this the best generator of 
eloquence I have met for many a day 
and of something better and grander than 
his own. 

Waldo E. 
60 



LETTERS 



XXVI 



Concord, /4/ri/ 30^/;, 1844. 

The reluctant spring has yielded us 
some golden days and I do not know any 
idleness so delicious as dilettanteism in 
fruit trees. Grafting and pruning turn a 
day into pure dream, and seem to promise 
the happy operator a dateless longevity, 
inasmuch as it appears to be a suspen- 
sion of all expenditure : only he must not 
cut his fingers. 

Did you read Vestiges of Creation ? I 
am told the journals abound with stric- 
tures, and Dr. Jackson told me how shal- 
low it was, but I find it a good approxi- 
mation to that book we have wanted so 
long, and which so many attempts have 
been made to write (by Mr. J. Herschel 
and Mrs. Somerville, and all the Bridge- 
water Treatises, &c., &c.), a digest namely, 
of all the recent results in all the depart- 
61 



LETTERS 

merits of Science. All the competitors 
have failed, and perhaps it needs a poet 
for a task like this, but this new Vyvyan, 
if it be he, has outdone all the rest in 
breadth and boldness, and one only wants 
to be assured that his facts are reliable. 
I have been reading a little in Plato (in 
translation, unhappily) with great com- 
fort and refreshment of mind, as always 
happens to me in that quarter. The Cor- 
respondence of Goethe and Schiller gave 
me little pleasure. I shall delight to hear 
from you. 

R. W. E. 
62 



LETTERS 



XXVII 



Concord, March 25, 1847. 

I have had two letters from you which 
were both most welcome. You shall 
surely keep the books as long as you 
read them. We can like any book so 
little while ! Though its pages were cut 
out of the sky, and its letters were stars, 
in a short time we cannot find there, with 
any turning of leaves, the celestial sen- 
tences or the celestial scents we certainly 
found there once ; and I am of opinion 
that relatively to individual needs, the 
fiery scriptures in each book either disap- 
pear once for all from the context after a 
short time, or else have a certain inter- 
mittency and periodical obscuration, like 
"revolving lights." Perhaps too, there 
are cycles of epiphany and eclipse in 
book shops. Certainly I have seen no- 
thing that craved to go to . . . since you 
63 



LETTERS 

gave me leave to look for you. But I 
shall not yet quite resign my commission. 
Theodore Parker and others are con- 
sidering just now, once more, the practi- 
cability of a new Quarterly Journal, and 
they seek for an editor. They came to 
me and then to C. Sumner. I promised 
my best help, but no editorship. ^ Sum- 
ner declined also. Then I am invited on 
some terms — not yet quite definite and 
attractive enough — to England, to lec- 
ture : in Manchester and Birmingham, 
and Carlyle promises audiences in Lon- 
don.2 But though I often ask where 
shall I get the whip for my top, I do not 
yet take either of these. The top be- 
lieves it can fly like the wheel of the Sis- 
ters, with a poise like a planet and a hum 

1 This project took form in the Massachusetts Quar- 
terly Review, the first number of which, with Parker, Em- 
erson, and J. E. Cabot as co-editors, appeared in December, 
1847. It was mainly supported by Mr. Parker, and lived 
for three years. See Life and Correspondence of Theo- 
dore Parker, by John Weiss, i. 266-26S. 

2 The invitation was finally accepted, and Emerson sailed 
for Europe in October. 

64 



LETTERS 

like the spheral music, yet it refuses to 
spin. I have read in the Cosmogonists 
that every atom has a spiral tendency, an 
effort to spin. I think over all the shops 
of power where we might borrow that 
desiderated push, but none entirely suits 
me. The excursion to England and far- 
ther draws me sometimes, but the kind 
of travel I should prize, the most liberal, 
that made it a liberty and a duty to go, is 
not to be found in hospitable invitations. 
And if I could really do as I liked, I 
should probably turn towards Canada, 
into loneliest retreats, far from cities and 
friends who do not yield me what they 
would yield to any other companion, and 
I believe that literary power would be 
consulted by that course and not by the 
public road. — iWhen my meditations draw 
to any head, I shall hasten to apprise 
you, and perhaps I shall, if they do not. 
Yours affectionately, 

R. W. E. 
6s 



LETTERS 



XXVIII 



London, March 20th, 1S48. 

It was a great pleasure to see your 
handwriting the other day, for the first 
time for long. A day or two afterwards 
I saw Mrs. Butler, who had also news 
from you, which she promised to share if 
I would come and see her. But I fear 
she has already left town and I have 
not used my privilege. She will quickly 
come back, they said, I made a point 
first of seeing her as Cordelia, with Mac- 
ready for Lear, and I found them both 
excellent. 

What shall I say to you of Babylon } 
I see and hear with the utmost diligence, 
and the lesson lengthens as I go ; so that, 
at some hours, I incline to take some 
drops of or grains of lotus, forget my 
home and selfish solitude, and step by 
step establish my acquaintance with Eng- 
66 



LETTERS 

lish society. There is nowhere so much 
wealth of talent and character and social 
accomplishment, every star outshone by 
one more dazzling, and you cannot move 
without coming into the light and fame 
of new ones. I have seen, I suppose, 
some good specimens, chiefly of the lit- 
erary-fashionable and not of the fashion- 
able sort. Macaulay is quite the king of 
every circle where he goes, by the splen- 
dor and the speed of his talking. He 
has the strength of ten men, I may well 
say, and any table-talk of his is an ex- 
ploit to found a reputation on. Mr. Hal- 
lam is affable, but comparatively quiet. 
Bunsen is reputed a man of learning and 
wide information and is much a man of 
society, but he talked little when I saw 
him. Milnes is the most gentle friendly 
all-knowing little-caring omnipresent per- 
son that can be. You see him so often 
that you think it must be Boston, not 
London. Lord Morpeth's virtues give 
him the highest consideration, both in 
67 



LETTERS 

public and in private circles. Mr. Charles 
Austin is a lawyer of great reputation, 
and of special talent that makes him 
the only fit match for Macaulay. Mil- 
man is a very polished man and Mrs. 
Milman a superior woman, and they are 
the centre of a distinguished circle. Car- 
lyle does not very often dine out or go to 
breakfasts, so that I do not well know 
how he, who is a wonderful talker, man- 
ages his tomahawk among these Romans. 
I have seen also Lady Harriet Baring, 
esteemed the wittiest woman in London, 
and am to dine with her this week, — a 
lady in great respect. Kinglake I have 
seen, a sensible man enough, but he does 
not look the Eothen ; and Barry Corn- 
wall, at whose house I found him and 
Thackeray, you should never mistake for 
a poet. They have all carried the art 
of agreeable sensations to a wonderful 
pitch, they know everything, have every- 
thing, they are rich, plain, polite, proud 
and admirable. But though good for 
68 



LETTERS 

them, it ^ ends in the using. I shall or 
should soon have enough of this play for 
my occasion. The seed-corn is oftener 
found in quite other districts. But I am 
very much struck with the profusion of 
talent which allows everybody to be igno- 
rant of the authors of paragraphs, arti- 
cles and books, which all read with ad- 
miration, but have not any guess of the 
writer. Tennyson, whom I wished to see 
more than any other, is in Ireland, and I 
fear I shall miss him. I saw Wordsworth 
to very good purpose in Westmoreland, 
and all the Scottish gods at Edinburgh. 
Perhaps it is no fault of Britain, — no 
doubt it is because I grow old and cold, — 
but no persons here appeal in any man- 
ner to the imagination. I think even that 
there is no person in England from whom 
I expect more than talent and information. 
But I am wont to ask very much more 
of my benefactors, — expansions that 
amount to new horizons. But this is 
very idle gossip, and when I come home, 
69 



LETTERS 

I will mend it by giving you all my im- 
pressions of this fine people — if I can 
remember them. Meantime do not fail 
to write me immediately.^ 

R. W. Emerson. 

1 Much of the contents of this letter may be found de- 
veloped in Emerson's Etiglish Traits. The contempora- 
neously recorded impressions were but little modified by 
retrospection. 

70 



LETTERS 



XXIX 



At Sea [on the homeward voyage]. 

Steamship Evkofa, /u/y 22a?, 1848. 

The daily presence and cheerful smiles 
of your brother make it almost impera- 
tive, if I had not besides a just debt, to 
write you a page, and it will be some 
sunshine in these head winds and long 
disgust of the sea, to remember all the 
gallery of agreeable images that are wont 
to appear with your name. What games 
we men so dumb and lunatic play with 
one another ! What is it or can it be to 
you that through the long mottled trivial 
years a dreaming brother cherishes in a 
corner some picture of you as a type or 
nucleus of happier visions and a freer 
life. I am so safe in my iron limits from 
intrusion or extravagance, that I can well 
afford to indulge my humor with the 
figures that pass my dungeon window, 
71 



LETTERS 

without incurring any risk of a ridiculous 
shock from coming hand to hand with 
my Ariel and Gabriel. Besides, if you 
and other deceivers should really not have 
the attributes of which you hang out the 
sign, you were meant to have them, they 
are in the world, and it is with good rea- 
son that I rejoice in the tokens. Strange 
that what is most real and cordial in ex- 
istence should lie under what is most 
fantastic and vanishing. I have long ago 
found that we belong to our life, not that 
it belongs to us, and that we must be 
content to play a sort of admiring and 
secondary part to our genius. But here, 
to relieve you of these fine cobwebs, 
comes an odd challenge from a fellow 
passenger to play chess with him ; me 
too, who have not played chess, I sup- 
pose, for twenty years. 'T is of a piece 
with the oddity of my letter, and I shall 
accept that, as I write this. Shadows 
and shadows. Never say I did it. Your 
loving fellow film. 

72 



LETTERS 



XXX 



Sea Weeds. — Two very good men ^ 
with whom I spent a Sunday in the coun- 
try near Winchester lately, asked me if 
there were any Americans, if there were 
any who had an American idea ? or what 
is it that thoughtful and superior men 
with us would have ? Certainly I did not 
retort, after our country fashion, by defy- 
ing them to show me one mortal Eng- 
lishman who did not live from hand to 
mouth but who saw his way. No, I as- 
sured them there were such monsters 
hard by the setting sun, who believed in 
a future such as was never a past, but 
if I should show it to them, they would 
think French communism solid and prac- 
ticable in the comparison. So I sketched 

1 These two good men were Carlyle, and Mr. (afterward 
Sir Arthur) Helps. The conversation is recorded in Eng- 
lish Traits, ch. xvi. 

73 



LETTERS 

the Boston fanaticism of right and might 
without bayonets or bishops, every man 
his own King, and all cooperation neces- 
sary and extemporaneous. Of course my 
men went wild at the denying to society 
the beautiful right to kill and imprison. 
But we stood fast for milk and acorns, 
told them that musket-worship was per- 
fectly well known to us, that it was an 
old bankrupt, but that we had nev-er seen 
a man of sufficient valor and substance 
quite to carry out the other, which was 
nevertheless as sure as Copernican as- 
tronomy, and all heroism and invention 
must of course lie on this side. 'T is 
wonderful how odiously thin and pale this 
republic dances before blue bloodshot 
English eyes, but I had some anecdotes 
to bring some of its traits within their 
vision, and at last obtained a kind of al- 
lowance ; but I doubt my tender converts 
are backsliding before this, — But their 
question which began the conversation 
was so dangerous that I thought of no 
74 



LETTERS 

escape but to this extreme and sacred 
asylum, and having got off for once 
through the precinct of the temple, I 
shall not venture into such company 
again, without consulting those same 
thoughtful Americans, whom their in- 
quiry concerned. And you first, you who 
never wanted for a weapon of your faith, 
choose now your colors and styles, and 
draw in verse, or prose, or painted out- 
line, the portrait of your American. 

Forgive these ricketty faltering lines 
of mine ; they do not come of infirm faith 
or love, but of the quivering ship. 
Ever your friend, 

R. W. E. 
75 



LETTERS 



XXXI 



Concord, July i2ih, 1S49. 

The Club is not so out at elbows as 
your friend fancied, for besides other 
good men whom I do not remember, 
Cabot was there, who is always bright, 
erect, military, courteous and knowing, 
a man to make a club. Then Hillard, 
Lowell, Longfellow, and other men of 
this world, have all shown themselves 
once — and, with a little tenderness and 
reminding, will all learn to come. There 
is a whole Lili's Park,^ also with tusks 
and snakes of the finest description. Be- 
lief is the principal thing with clubs as 
well as in trade and politics. And really 
we have already such good elements 
nominally in this, that the good luck of 

1 " Lili's Park " is a half-humorous poetic autobiographic 
allegory of Goethe's, in which he represents himself as the 
bear in subjection to Lili's charm. 
76 



LETTERS 

a spirited ' conversation, or one or two 
happy rencontres would now save it. 
Henry James of New York is a member, 
and I had the happiest half hour with 
that man lately, at his house, so fresh 
and expansive he is. My view now is to 
accept the broadest democratic basis, and 
we can elect twenty people every month, 
for years to come, and yet show black- 
balls and proper spirit at each meeting. 
R. W. Emerson. 
77 



LETTERS 



XXXII 



Concord, July jgt/t, 1849. 

The Horticultural paper never came, 
and I am left to guess your opinions on 
Downing. Do not fail to inquire on your 
side, for my postmaster is positive here. 
— I send you, I am ashamed it is so late, 
with Dr. Carlyle's compliments, a copy 
of his Dante.^ The Doctor's presenta- 
tions are slow, fault of the Harpers, who 
forget their author for a time. But the 
book is worth waiting for, the most con- 
scientious of translations. Confirm me, 
if you can, in my estimate of it. I read 
it lately by night, with wonder and joy 
at all his parts, and at none more than at 
the nerve and courage which is as essen- 
tial to poet as to soldier. Dante locked 
the door and put the key in his pocket. 
I believe, we value only those who do so. 

R. W. E. 

1 Dr. John Carlyle's excellent translation of the Inferno, 
published in this country by Harper & Brothers. 

78 



LETTERS 



XXXIII 



Concord, February 2^tk, 1850. - 

I saw Longfellow at Lowell's two days 
ago, and . he declared that his faith in 
clubs was firm. " I will very gladly," 
he said, "meet with Ward and you and 
Lowell and three or four others, and dine 
together." Lowell remarked, " Well, if 
he agrees to the dinner, though he re- 
fuses the supper, we will continue the 
dinner till next morning ! " — Meantime, 
as measles, the influenza and the maga- 
zine appear to be periodic distempers, so, 
just now, Lowell has been seized with 
aggravated symptoms of the magazine, — 
as badly as Parker or Cabot heretofore, 
or as the chronic case of Alcott and me. 
He wishes to see something else and 
better than the Knickerbocker. He came 
up to see me. He has now been with 
Parker, who professed even joy at the 
79 



LETTERS 

prospect offered him of taking off his 
hea\y saddle, and Longfellow fosters his 
project. Then Parker urges the forming 
of a kind of Anthology Club ^ : — so out 
of all these resembling incongruities I do 
not know but we shall yet get a dinner 
or a ^' Nodes." 

Ever yours, 

R. W. E. 

1 The Anthology Club was a club of men of letters 
which had existed in Boston in the early years of the cen- 
tury. Emerson's father was one of its members, and editor 
for a time of the journal. The Monthly Anthology, from 
which the club took its name. 
80 



LETTERS 



XXXIV 



Concord, November zzd, 1853. 

My little household is grown much less 
by the loss of my Mother, She was born 
to live. She lived eighty-four years, yet 
not a day too long, and died suddenly 
and unexpectedly at the last. She was 
born a subject of King George, was bred 
in the Church of England, and, though 
she had lived through the whole existence 
of this nation, and was tied all round to 
later things, English traditions and cour- 
tesies and the Book of Common Prayer 
clung to her in her age, and, had it been 
practicable, it would have seemed more 
fit to have chanted the Liturgy over her, 
and buried her in her father's tomb under 
Trinity Church, 1 R. W. E. 

1 In Mr. Cabot's Memoir of Emerson (p. 572) is a letter 
to his brother W'Uliam, three days earlier in date than the 
preceding, which contains similar expressions concerning 
his mother's death. " Her mind and her character were of 
a superior order, and they set their stamp upon manners 
of peculiar softness and natural grace and quiet dignity." 
Ibid., p. 37. 

81 



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